If we're talking SMS from my smartphone, I can't recall ever having sent more than 10 in a single day - but I *can* recall my son saying he broke the 2000 messages/month included in his plan - it's an age thing, I guess;)

Sure, there's all this political correctness about how it's rude to run over people and crash into cars because you were texting while you should have been driving. But that's not the real reason I don't do that...

The #$#$* HTC Android 2.1-update1 text application uses too small a font size, and doesn't let the user change the font, so I have to put on my reading glasses if I want to read texts, and I have to take them off if I want to see past the dashboard. Yes, Android has a little microphone widget on

I won't send text messages at all. The rates are ridiculous. They're marginally free for the phone companies, since they fit them into the "hey, phone, where are you?" packets that the network is sending anyway. Send me an email instead, an email that reads "Sorry, I'm getting off your lawn!"

I won't send text messages at all. The rates are ridiculous. They're marginally free for the phone companies, since they fit them into the "hey, phone, where are you?" packets that the network is sending anyway. Send me an email instead, an email that reads "Sorry, I'm getting off your lawn!"

Cost isn't my factor, it's I couldn't be bothered If I'm going to interact it's through a phone call.

send zero.... receive zero.... our phones have a block on all data and text -- used to get tons of text spam.. not any more.;p

verizon, naturally, chose to ignore that account setting (that we had in place for years) when integrating our alltel account, and we had a massive surge in text spam for a couple weeks. it took *that long* to get verizon to add that feature (or rather, the lack of several) back to our plan. next time they fuck up will be the last -- termination fees be damned. verizon sucks.

Personally, there are lots of situations I'd rather receiver a text than a phone call (of course, as you said, I'd rather receiver a Google Talk or other IM message even more). A phone call means I have to, at minimum check to see who is calling, and if the call/caller is important enough to me drop what I am doing and have a minimum 1 minute conversation (and an large number of people feel the need to stretch that out into 5 minutes with pointless small talk that has nothing to do with the reason for thei

Cost isn't my factor, it's I couldn't be bothered If I'm going to interact it's through a phone call.

For me it's the opposite. I wasn't much of a fan of texting when it first gained popularity, but when I realized it meant I wouldn't actually have to speak to people over the phone I decided it was awesome.

A phone call is often extremely inconvenient -- if you're in a meeting, if you have company, or if you're at a loud bar or a club, or if you're traveling, it is hard to answer the phone. But unlike voice, text messages are asynchronous, which is awesome. I don't need to answer it immediately, and I can get to it when I want. Text messages are infinitely more convenient because unlike voice, I can send media (pictures, clips, links etc). It's even more convenient when you have friends across various timezone

I find the phone frustratingly inconvenient, especially for swapping simple information, which often takes 5-10 minutes. If I'm going to talk at length to socialize, I do it while hanging out enjoying one another in-person. Also with the phone, I always worry that I'll be interrupting something if I call, and about all of the little nonverbal social niceties: how to end the call without causing offense or implying I'd rather be doing something else (even if I would), noticing when the other person would ra

My new contract (the SIM arrived today) includes 5000 per month "free". The current company's website suggests I use about 100-150 a month, which sounds about right (maybe 1 a day, but if I'm meeting someone after work or at the weekends it could be 5-10).

I could email, but most people expect to receive these kind of messages by text.

Yeah, same here. I've got nothing against the idea of messages using text, and I like AIM and gchat. But the rates for SMS are just so horrid compared to the actual cost to the company. It's an embodiment of the scum-sucking unchecked corporate greed and the twisted culture of consumers that, for whatever reason, seems to lap it up. My bank account can afford it, but my thriftiness just can't deal with it and gags at the thought.

I won't send them either because I consider them pointless. By the time you're done composing it you've spent at least as much time as you would calling. I use a PAYG phone, and except for the occasional message from some ID10T, the only texts I get are from my phone company, either reminding me to add air time or confirming that I have, and those are free.

Yes and no. I find texting to SOMETIMES be more time-convenient for both parties.

Yes, by the time you type out a 170char statement you could have easily dialed, waited for the guy to pickup, and talk. But... then HE has to talk. And maybe he's a little too busy at work / home to answer to even answer the phone. Or maybe he answers because it might be urgent, but it's really you asking something that isn't urgent and says he'll call you back. Or maybe it's a question that requires him to look something

Ting [ting.com] starts at $3/100 txt, min or mb (non-bundled), and T-Mobile's [t-mobile.com] $30 for unlimited texts and either 5gb+100min or 30mb+1500min. Both are no-contract prepaid monthly plans with optional BYOD.

I decided to go with Ting about a week ago after researching companies for ages. They allow sharing at $6/device, sell new/refurbs below cost, and have separate tiers for voice/data/texts with automatic adjustment (no overages). Here's the first 3 levels for each:Minutes: $3/100, $9/500, $18/1kTexts: $3/100, $5/1k, $

I voted "zero", but it's more "one a week". Interestingly, because I have 100 free sms/mo on my plan, still I almost always use WhatsApp. Mainly because I use it to share pics ("should I buy this/that?").

Her total was consistently 5K-6K/month. I used to get itemized billing and when the bill would come it was too large to fold and would come in a 9x12 envelope. Always in the order of 200pp. AT&T automatically took me off itemized billing...

If it's strictly SMS, I seldom use it. These days all I get are SMS spam, and the OTP tokens whenever I bank online. Why pay 10c a message when i can Whatsapp, gtalk or facebook message on my phone for the price of my data plan?

10c a message !!!???!!!! It's been included for ages over here in Europe.

I still cannot fathom why you pay such outrageous rates for everything wireless (or wired for that matter). Competition is a bitch, but it works over here. We actually got our 4th cellphone carrier last year. Rates instantly dropped by 50% at least. We now have a plan that costs 2€/month !! (internet not included though, but 2h talk and unlimited SMS)

I'm sure I'm getting old and all that but I just can't get into texting. Mostly this is due to the fact that I don't own a cell phone. If I did own one, I would still find the concept of paying for texting offensive. The data rates put the cost per megabyte somewhere around the same rates as buying Winchester disk storage in the early 1980s. The worst part is that the true cost for the service provider is effectively nothing - texting plans are about as close to 100% profit as anything ever put on the market. Even if you got unlimited texting for "free" as part of your plan, it's part of the product that they charging you for.

The true cost of sending and receving SMS text messages may be zero, but your telco incurs a lot of cost in maintaining information on the number of messages you sent and then it has to print a bill, mail it to you, collect your payments, keep records of paid and unpaid bills, etc. The billing process is quite expensive.

If I had my way, I would either send none, or use them as an occasional notification for those few times when calling is overkill. As it is now, I usually end up having to send at least four or five messages a day, because for whatever reason my sister insists on using the damn things as her exclusive form of communication. I have a strong preference toward using a phone to actually, you know, call people for communication. Drives me fucking nuts when I have to dick around "typing" on a god damn phone an

In the wise words of Homer Simpson, "It takes two to lie, one to lie and one to listen". If you're in a text conversation with your sister, that's your own fault. You're the one replying with text instead of voice. You're the one replying within two minutes instead of half an hour or an hour later. She only texts you because you text back.

For the same price I send a text message I can talk for a whole minute on the phone, or leave a message on the "answering machine". Uncle has still an actual answering machine with a cassette tape inside to record messages anyway.

I hear the answering-machine bit a lot as a reason to not text. And I'm not going to argue against it (for everyone) because for some, that's fine.

But for others... well... a fair percentage of my texts involve something specific. Directions, addresses, shopping lists, server names, etc. Things that could be easily lost in translation or forgotten. With a text, assuming I don't make a typo, they have the exact directions with the correct spelling of the street (Walden vs Warden, Sycamore vs Sagamore, Ser

The problem is you have to trust that everyone you contact has a smartphone with at least a decent data-plan.

Unfortunately I know people that have flip-phones that they hate typing on. I know people with smart phones but crazy-small data plans because they don't want to use it much -- meaning they turn off their cellular data when they're out.

Plus, I find the conversation view on a chat system easier to follow. Not that the email threads are hard to follow, but simpler is sometimes better.

I don't do text messaging much except to my kids. They have iPhones so I am not sure if that is an age thing or maybe iPhones do not do emails as easily as real Smartphones.

For everything else, there is Gmail. This has the added advantage that I can read it from my tablet home PC or work if I want to.. My gmail does not get lost every time I get a new phone or reset the one I have either. I think I have had Gmail for a long time and I have filled 0.6% of my allotted space. Why do people still use SMS t

At work rather than yell across the room or pick up the phone, we click away at the keyboards to ask a question via an instant message tool Technically they are text messages in my eye, they just aren't over the phone. But then again aren't all text messages over the phone really over the internet?

So 25-50 is pretty standard for me. Although I still prefer picking up the phone or walking over to someone. I like hearing a voice.

Or, smart enough to realize that almost anything that can be said in 160 characters or less, really isn't worth saying at all.

"Hey, do you wanna to go camping this weekend?"

"Shit, I'm gonna be a few minutes late for our meeting"

Or even something as simple as "Happy Birthday!".

Yeah, I can't possibly think of any use for a communication medium that is terse.

I swear, I'm as much of an old grumpy fuck as the next Slashdotter - but even I recognize something that's ubiquitous, simple, and damned handy. Email is more involved, calling has its own issues (not everyone is free to engage in a call every second of the day), IM is nowhere near standardized...

Gimme SMS text for making plans with people or blasting off quick info, thanks. It's one of the best technologies invented in terms of "it just works". Well, presuming most people have cellphones (insert a bunch of comments below about how you don't own a TV either, and we may have another Onion article on our hands).

Contrary to what some kids seem to think these days, SMS texting is not Twitter. I'm not sending "I'm taking a dump!" to my friends through SMS (although perhaps I should...).

Hah! The other day, my GF's niece texted her a picture of one of those pregnancy test sticks. GF phoned her and, yes, the niece is pregnant! Probably wouldn't have been so good for her to tell her hubby that way though.:)

As I see it, e-mailing involves:
1) enter/select recipient
2) type message
3) hit send
Can someone explain to me what makes SMS less involved than those three steps? I've never done it, and I honestly can't imagine what could make it simpler.

Precisely; as a matter of fact, I was just talking to one of my colleagues about Twitter and we both agreed it's been dumbing people (and communication) down.Ironically, your post contains 173 characters, spaces included. You're awfully close to the Twitter threshold, so better watch it!:)

Every phone I've used in at least the last 10 years has the capability to combine SMS messages together seamlessly for both sending and receiving; most messages I send are typically made up of 3-4 text messages glommed together.

I don't even own a cellphone, and I work for a semiconductor manufacturer.

Good for you, my friend works for JPL. Of course, he's a janitor.

The "I work for X" is just as useless as saying "combined, the X of us have Y years of experience" The experience bit always drives me nuts, because sometimes its a group of rookies saying "the 5 of us have 7 years experience" Sorry, 5 individual rookies with Y experience doesn't make you more knowledgeable about your job than a 6 year veteran.

I work for X means nothing. Maybe you're a rookie, maybe you're a janitor, maybe your job has n

If you have an old-school phone, it takes less time and less money to call than to text

Perhaps less of your time, but I'd find it a bit rude if someone called me -- meaning I have to immediately stop what I'm doing, losing concentration and being impolite to anyone I'm with -- to tell me something short enough to text.

If you interrupt what I'm doing, when you don't even know what I'm doing, it had better be important.

If you interrupt what I'm doing, when you don't even know what I'm doing, it had better be important.

Let me get this straight:
You have chosen to carry a communications device, on which anyone from your mother to your coworker to a telemarketer could call you at any time...
You have chosen not to turn this device off or even silence it...
You have chosen to take a call in the physical presence of someone else in a context you admit counts as impolite...

...And you would consider it "rude" that someone would rather talk to a friend for 30 seconds than annoy everyone around both of you with 10 round trips of "yeah not a ringtone but still annoying" bleeps?

I take it back - I shouldn't have closed that "cranky old man" tag. I clearly don't understand what passes for "polite" among those damned kids on my lawn.;)

If you interrupt what I'm doing, when you don't even know what I'm doing, it had better be important.
Let me get this straight:
You have chosen to carry a communications device, on which anyone from your mother to your coworker to a telemarketer could call you at any time...
You have chosen not to turn this device off or even silence it...
You have chosen to take a call in the physical presence of someone else in a context you admit counts as impolite......And you would consider it "rude" that someone would rather talk to a friend for 30 seconds than annoy everyone around both of you with 10 round trips of "yeah not a ringtone but still annoying" bleeps?

Yup, pretty much. You carry around a communications device because hey, your house might be on fire! That doesn't mean it's polite to have phone conversations all the time. Texting is a low-priority, reasonably-private means of communication. If you're doing something important and someone texts you, you can let it lie until you're free, and nobody will care. With that, the whole "you have chosen to take a call..." bit isn't as relevant, because you don't turn down a call; a call is high priority and h

Yup: for me phonecall == high priority and urgent. Text == we can wait for a response

Admittedly, some people I know have reversed preferences than I do. THEY want Texts to be anything that needs an IMMEDIATE reply and phone calls for nothing urgent which I don't understand (but can accept). A phonecall means a long ringtone going on for 5-10 seconds and thus grabs the attention... while a text might just be a couple of beeps. In which case, if my house was on fire... I'd hope you'd want to get my attent

Yes, yes and yes, because my expectation is that any call I receive is important (if I know the number).

Cultures differ, and at my workplace (in England) if someone's phone rings during a meeting and they answer it, when they've finished they'll be asked if there's a problem -- do they need to go and collect a sick child from school, for example. (Average age is probably about 35-40, range 25-60-ish)

Causing an interruption to learn that you need to buy bread on the way home is not acceptable.

Not just important, but urgent - real time.If the purpose of the call is to impart information, and by definition (see above) that information is important, then one should expect the recipient to write it down somehow. Upon what, you ask? Well, he could scrabble for a pen and paper, and somewhere upon which to rest, I guess, but the modern man-about-town would surely prefer to use the PDA he has in his pocket, which happens to have phone functionality, obviously!

That makes me wonder, why do you talk to anyone live except in emergencies? They could just text or email you, and you could deal with such tasks as exchanging pleasantries over dinner in a quick 30 second read through. Probably not even any response necessary, just a round-table of status updates ("Oh, can we parking lot that comment about your boyfriend, I don't give a damn about your relationships, sorry Sally") from all the diners present and chew chew chew before heading off to "important" things.

I guess I just tend to consider "life", and fellow humans in general, as inherently real-time phenomena. As opposed to merely one more queue of annoyances to process when someone with whom I would like to chat can spare some cycles. Then again, I also just ignore the damned phone when I don't feel like taking a call, and don't secretly harbor the delusion that everyone magically knows when I might (or might not) want to talk to them. What do people do, check into FourSquare as available to take calls from Mom?

Apologies in advance for the vitriol, but seriously? I consider myself one of the most anti-social people I know, and it still just blows me away that some people consider making a phone call to a friend rude.

It could be that about 90% (probably more) of the people who I enjoy conversing with in real time I either meet face-to-face for conversation regularly or am effectively in 24/7 conversation with over IRC. I.e. I converse live with almost everyone I care to all the time.I prefer my communication to be non-ephemeral, so I prefer e-mail to telephone calls. If you get a touching e-mail from an old friend, one who you aren't in either constant real-time contact with, you can read that mail as many times as you

Causing an interruption to learn that you need to buy bread on the way home is not acceptable.

The caller doesn't magically know that you have a meeting going on. They don't know you've gone out to lunch with a potential customer. They don't know you've decided to play a 3pm game of hide-the-sausage with your secretary. They don't know you have after-dinner company over for Poker on a Tuesday night.

I guess I just can't grasp the idea of ascribing rudeness to someone for what amount to their lack of p

Because, if it was something unimportant that didn't need an reply RIGHT NOW, they would/should have texted instead.

If you need an answer/reply RIGHT NOW, call.If you need an answer/reply soon, sometime in the next few hours, text.If you need an answer/reply sometime in the next few days or it is an announcement to a large group, email.

I don't think that is a hard concept. Of course there are exceptions, like calling to be social after work hours is ok occasionally. But if I get a call in the middle of th

Perhaps less of your time, but I'd find it a bit rude if someone called me -- meaning I have to immediately stop what I'm doing, losing concentration and being impolite to anyone I'm with -- to tell me something short enough to text.
95% of people that I see texting will drop everything they are doing to reply to a text.

Actually, it's a technology problem. Calls are/were fairly hard on the cell phone network, and cell towers could only handle a few dozen concurrent call connect/disconnects at a time. Once the call is established, it's relatively easy on the network. The problem is that in the US, SMS messages act like a phone call. They do a multi-way handshake, set up a communications channel, send a bit of data, then tear down the connection again. Remember, the US cell phone network was created long before it was a

Same here, but not quite as cranky... I just don't use my phone much. I average about 3 calls a week, maybe 5 or 6 texts. If I sent more texts, I might be concerned about the price (or I might just cave in and load WhatsApp), but at this rate the cost is negligible.

Although I was never fond of talking on the phone, I'm far from being a hermit. I own a restaurant/pub about 5min walk from home, so I just don't have much use for the cell phone. I'm almost always either at home or at work, and I have a land lin